Chocolate Eating Bugs!

On · Category: Pantry Beetles, Grain Weevils, Spider Beetles, Meal Worms and Carpet Beetles Tagged With: · 6 Comments

Hi,
I stumbled on your website during a search. I have a question concerning Chocolate. I have a co-worker that brings me Hershey Kisses every morning. I don’t eat them right away, so, when I finally decided to eat a few, to my surprise, there were little brown gnat type bugs that had burrowed through the kiss!!!!!!!!!!! One co-worker had the entire Hershey Kiss gone including the almond! It did leave the shell however! HELP. We just want to know what they are! Thanks!
Pamela

Hi Pamela,
Certain types of Pantry Beetles will eat chocolate, burrowing through the candy leaving the shell intact.

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6 Responses to Chocolate Eating Bugs!

  1. Isabel says:
    March 23, 2016 at 6:14 pm

    if you find a pantry beetle in a piece of chocolate, is the chocolate still safe to eat?

    Reply
  2. Steve says:
    February 8, 2017 at 1:01 pm

    How do u get rid of them?

    Reply
  3. edward Hall says:
    January 29, 2018 at 6:47 pm

    Same! i just ate a hershey kiss and bugs were in it! i ate 3!! I’m honestly disgusted but i want to know will it harm me?

    Reply
  4. Sharon J Randolph says:
    December 21, 2019 at 11:56 am

    Have found bugs in my individually wrapped Hersheys candy. Are they harmsul??? Think I will return them to Walmart!

    Reply
  5. Jeremy says:
    August 23, 2021 at 6:12 pm

    Since I’m noticing a running theme here, insect droppings are generally so minute in quantity that they won’t be enough to be harmful. If I had a heavily infested piece of food I’d sooner throw it out, just like I would if I found an insect leg in that chocolate, but it ought to be perfectly safe. The basic food safety rule still always applies, of course: if in doubt, throw it out.

    It’s likely that you’ve eaten the bugs themselves. Insects themselves are generally safe to eat — if anything, they’re quite nutritious. There are very few varieties of bugs that are poisonous to humans, and most of them are only poisonous in “that’s way too many goddamned beetles” quantities. Like, buying-a-box-of-Screechin’-Beetles quantities: http://www.amazingsuperpowers.com/2008/04/noisy-cereal/ + http://www.amazingsuperpowers.com/hc/04142008/

    You are likely to eat a few thousand bug fragments per year in most of your food as it is. No-see-ums and other fruit flies are big culprits, but even things like bug parts might roll into processed foods.

    Yes, it’s disgusting. No, it’s unavoidable. =)

    The USFDA even explicitly permits bugs in your food, provided it’s not in excess of 60 insect fragments per 100 grams… though these fragments are usually too small to see except under magnification. A fully intact leg of a cockroach is definitely something that should be eliminated during quality control, and you have every right to complain if you find one. But a tiny crunchy bit of exoskeleton the size of the point of a pin, you might never even notice.

    Long story short: don’t worry about it. It’s gross, but that’s about it.

    Reply

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